Family Titles & Named Relationships

[ChemGal]

Posted in Room For All - I have great aunts and uncles where I use that in the name for them. Ie. Great Uncle Bill
Other side, not so much.

I also put Aunt and Uncle in front of all my immediate aunts and uncles names, Chemguy used to tease me a bit for that, My teen phase just changed from Auntie to Aunt haha. I guess he dropped that as a teen. I have started to drop it too, partially just due to phone conversations with my parents, conversations with Chemguy, plus I think having a generation now after me has factored in.

As for more distant relatives, there's a lot I don't understand the connection, there's a number of people my mom would just say were her cousins, whether 1st or not, so I have no idea about a lot of those connections unless I know the direct connection to some of the relatives I do know. She also had some of that funny generation crossover. I didn't have that with my direct relatives. My aunts and uncles are all within 10 years of each other, probably closer to 5. I don't have a lot of cousins, we were all within 3 years of each other, and then one who is 17 years younger, so starting to hit a potential generation gap, but then of the kids our group has had, the kids are fairly close in age 11- almost 4.

What titles do you use and did it change over time?
Were you aware of how you were related or were there a lot of just 'cousins'?

 

[BetteTheRed]

I used (and still do) Aunt(ie) and Uncle for my parents' siblings. However, I also used it for some of their better adult friends. And in England, they're all cousins. If I'm required to, I can usually identify what sort of cousin, "1st cousin once removed", but some, especially related to various in-laws, get a bit complicated, and there was a period in my family's life where one man married into two different generations of the same family, thus totally messing up relational identifiers for a period.

 

[ChemGal]

Nephews just call us Auntie and Uncle, no names. They have another Uncle and a sorta Aunt (currently separated, but they have a kid) My sister has worked to get them to know our names now too.

The oldest is really good with people, I think it was his 4th birthday where he asked for specific dinosaurs from specific people - no doubling up! He is really good about remembering gifts, when playing sometimes he will say you got me this! At which point Chemguy sometimes looks and me and says did we? I can't remember! haha
There's a handmade toy car, and he went to Chemguy and said you made this! and Chemguy went no, that was your other Uncle. It confused him for a bit, I think especially because the gift was sent, not given in person. My sister did have to confirm he has 2 Uncles.

The youngest did call Chemguy Uncle once - to be fair he was wearing glasses - typically he just wears them for driving. When he went glasses shopping for the first time I was like oh no! you look like my dad with the first pair he put on.

 

[ChemGal]

I used (and still do) Aunt(ie) and Uncle for my parents' siblings. However, I also used it for some of their better adult friends. And in England, they're all cousins. If I'm required to, I can usually identify what sort of cousin, "1st cousin once removed", but some, especially related to various in-laws, get a bit complicated, and there was a period in my family's life where one man married into two different generations of the same family, thus totally messing up relational identifiers for a period.

Ah, I had a few of those Aunts, although it got dropped a long time ago - meet through work and there was a lot of childcare tradeoffs. I had forgot about that. Alberta oilfield create a family situation haha.

My great grandfather did marry his niece (through marriage). I don't have a connection to them though, and I don't even know if they had kids. I knew my step great grandfather as just my great grandpa although did know it was my great grandmas 2nd marriage.

 

[BetteTheRed]

OTOH, my parents' greatest friends, who I always "thought of" as godparents, because that's how they behaved, that's how involved they were in our lives, although they lived a few hours' drive away, so we only saw them for long weekends 4-5 times a year. But we corresponded, and telephoned, and their Mom was local for a while. And while I never referred to them as anything other than their first names (Ann, now deceased, and Ron, still with us; I still see him a couple of times a year), I referred to Ann's mother as Great Auntie Olive, and that's how she inscribed the yearly Christmas book to me.

 

[KayTheCurler]

My family wasn't very complicated. Both my parents had siblings that I called Auntie and Uncle Whoever. Dad's siblings were spread over a long time span so I had grown up cousins when I was preschool. There were a few extra aunts and uncles who were family friends and I always knew they weren't actual family.

Hubby's family were more complicated and he doesn't know what the relationship is in some cases. They are called by their given name except for the elderly ones. His mother and her sister each married a brother from a nearby farm. All the kids from that family had alcohol problems and only one marriage out of the five kids survived.

 

[Mrs.Anteater]

What I don’t understand is the expression “ once removed”. If the relative is so terrible, why do you remove him only once, does he not come back? Is there others who need to be removed twice, because they keep insisting they are related to you? And- if you remove them- where do they actually end up? Will other people be stuck with them?

 

[Luce NDs]

Then there's the owed Ba'aL ... above all poorly understood as dissociated ... and humanity keeps breaking up ... could be the endogenous hostilities ... etc. Who wins in war?

 

[JayneWonders]

Most of my relatives got called by the Aunt HerName or Uncle HisName.
Cousin's went just by first name, except for one cousin who was significantly older , and so, was called Cousin HerName.
One Uncle was the same age as my oldest brother, and so though I called him Uncle HisName as a kid, that sometimes now, I will just call him HisName. His wife definitely does NOT want Aunt in front of her name, and has made that very clear. In fact, if my brother is being a pain, he will call her Aunt HerName.

 

[ChemGal]

What I don’t understand is the expression “ once removed”. If the relative is so terrible, why do you remove him only once, does he not come back? Is there others who need to be removed twice, because they keep insisting they are related to you? And- if you remove them- where do they actually end up? Will other people be stuck with them?

To cover what this means as many get confused by 2nd 3rd etc. and removed it's generation based.
I mentioned my nephew having a 3rd cousin born the same day. That's my 2nd cousin once removed. A cousin of my grandparents generation would be twice removed. The 2nd 3rd 4th depends on how high up we need to go before sharing a grandparent- 2nd cousins a great grandparent 3rd great great, etc.

Can get complicated with the relatives marrying aspect!

 

[ChemGal]

I call my parents Mom and Dad almost exclusively. That has needed to change at times. Nephews birthday party multiple kids, I was trying to get my mom's attention. It's not like an adult calling Mom should have been confusing but it wasn't working. Her name did. Chemguy laughed at me for just not going to her name sooner. His parents referred to each other as Ma and Pa, I found that odd. He didn't until I teasingly called him Daddy.

 

[JayneWonders]

my siblings referred to a couple down in the windsor area by aunt and uncle. (I am significantly younger and don't know the couple).
They were people who also had immigrated from the area of England as my maternal grantdparents, so, were called "aunt" and "uncle" by my mother, and then, by the older isblings.